O Princely Heart
by Oshun
Summary: Richard of Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III) and Anne Neville. This is departure from Shakespeare's Richard the Third the humpbacked sociopath, but closer to real history, the tale of star-crossed teenager lovers, the Romeo and Juliet of the War of the Roses.


Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!  
Unlike our uses and our destinies.  
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

**London, early autumn, 1471**

The clatter of hooves drew Anne to the bay window that looked out onto the interior court yard of the London town house of her sister and her brother-in-law. She saw Richard and three retainers ride in through the great wooden gates of the house, which until recently had belonged to her father. The sprawling and elegant riverside house, actually a palace, had befitted the position of the powerful Earl of Warwick the kingmaker.

Richard dismounted, glancing up toward Anne's window before looking away, not wanting anyone to observe his eagerness to see her. A few minutes later, she heard a soft tapping at the door into her sitting room.

Isabel's lady's maid stuck her pert little nose around the door frame, before stepping inside and closing the door behind her. "Lady Anne," she said, dropping into a deep curtsey. "The Duke of Gloucester wishes to see you. Shall I bring him up?"

Her allusive grin annoyed Anne, but there was nothing to be done about that. The young woman's overly familiar manner and the all too obvious smugness at her part in the ongoing domestic conspiracy within the Clarence house was a small discomfort for Anne to endure in exchange for the pleasure of seeing Richard any time that Isabel and George happened to be away.

Releasing a deep sigh, Anne could not be bothered to hide her relief that Richard had found a way to break away from the king's side again to visit. "Yes, please. Thank you, Alice."

Richard looked stunning in dark blue velvet. She had mentioned once in an unguarded moment how well that shade of blue contrasted with his dark curls and his fair complexion. Since then, he had worn the color at least twice as often as he ever had before. Looking at Richard never grew old. Anne knew that well, since she had spent more than half of her life watching him at every possible opportunity.

"Oh, Dickon, I had hoped that you might come today."

"I would have come earlier if I could have." He took her hands, kissing them each in turn. "I'm happy to be here now. Isabel and George ought to stay late tonight. It's one of those feasts at Westminster Palace. I left to come here as soon as I saw Isabel and George had arrived. The dinner will be followed by music and dancing, and enough wine to keep George occupied for hours. Isabel looked radiant."

"She did, didn't she? That deep red becomes her. Won't you be missed?"

"Fortunately, I have a reputation in the south of being dour and shunning such events. What these people apparently do not understand is that I do not like the company here. But soon we will have feasts and music in Middleham again, like when we were young."

"We are still young, Dickon!" she said, blinking away a tear or two. "I pray that now we will finally be able to behave as young people ought."

The most tragic part of the last two miserable years for Ann had been the belief that she had lost Richard forever. But finally, like a happy ending in a troubadour's inflated romance—all but impossible to believe in her world so filled with loss and uncertainty—they could actually plot and hope to find a way to be together. Richard claimed he would not let her slip from his grasp a second time. That he would fight anyone who stood in their way, and give away any property or rights—his own or hers—if it came to that. Even the king had said he would help Richard. "Ned promised me!" Richard insisted. Well, if she could trust anyone in their cruel world, it would have to be Dickon and Ned.

That late summer evening Richard looked weary, soft lavender circles under his eyes marred his youthful beauty. Since she never tired of inspecting Richard, nothing could escape her gimlet eye.

"You look pale," she said.

He shrugged. "Everyone has asked me if I felt well today. Now, even you! It's this city and spending too much time at court. I'll be glad to go back to the north. But I will not leave without you. The truth is I have an awful headache and my back hurts as well." She flew across the room to take his hand and bring it to her lips.

"Will you keep my secret, Annie? You will soon enough understand the full extent of my physical problems. I am far from perfect—not robust like my brothers. Do you think I could have a glass of wine?" He looked wistfully at the decanter on the sideboard across the room. And she looked witstfully at him. Afterall, she did have eyes with which to see. She saw a boy—boy no longer, truly a man now and a powerful one—not as tall or broad as his brothers, but fit and warrior strong.

"Of course you can. I am so sorry," she said, rushing to grab a glass for him. "You may have anything, everything you want. Have you eaten yet? I was so happy to see you that I forgot to offer you refreshment. Let me pour your wine at least before I call for dinner for you. I looked in the kitchen earlier. They prepared only for me and the household," she prattled on unable to control herself. "But there is sliced roast pork, fresh bread, greens, and even lemon cake."

His physical nearness drew her attention back to his body, close enough to embrace. _What could he mean? Not robust_. "But, Dickon, you are _never_ sick and now I will look after your aches and pains. You must eat more. You've never eaten enough. I'll make sure you get your rest and do not over train."

"You look so pretty today," he said, biting his lower lip and smiling. _Could he realize how provocative that looked? Perhaps he did, _she thought with a shiver.

She handed him the glass of wine, glowing ruby red in the waning sunlight filtering through the cloudy window glass. "You'll like the wine. It's from Burgundy. Unless you are still too annoyed with them, for all the grief they caused you, to enjoy it."

"You're thinking of George. I am able to consider politics for what it is and not confuse it with other things," he said. "I didn't stop loving you and trusting you for a second, despite anything your father had done." Stepping closer to him, she reached around his body to stroke his lower back but he twisted away, his smile turning into a dogged pout.

"Dickon! Don't wrench away like that. Let me touch you. I have known since I was a little girl that your back bothers you." He had always worked so hard to hide it. "Let me see where it hurts you. Is it getting worse? Take off your jacket and your shirt. Now."

"If I take my shirt off and show you, then you have to take something off as well. Slippers do not count!" He laughed, the sudden shyness under control again. His eyes glittered with mischief, as he flung the velvet jacket at the nearest chair and, only partially untied the points fastening his hose to his doublet before squirming free of it to let it hang from the waist.

"I will not be taking anything off," she said, in a bold attempt to sound light and in control. The quaver in her voice betrayed her. "At least not until you make an honest woman of me." So much pale skin, so suddenly revealed, caused her to catch her breath. "Oh, you wicked boy," she gasped.

His shoulders were broad, his chest and arms well-muscled, and yet still painfully thin at nearly twenty. She'd always found his appearance terribly romantic and appealing—so masculine and martial in aspect, and yet so gracile in form. She could see, more clearly than ever before, that there was something off about the construction of his upper body. Not perfect, but she had noted that years earlier, the slight asymmetry about the cast of his shoulders perhaps. He masked it well by putting his weight on the opposite leg when standing, jutting one hip forward, could be seen as a cocky or flirtatious posture, incongruous with his solemn manner. She knew Dickson was not naturally solemn but self-aware and guarded. He could be more than bold when boldness was required. And there was a controlled sensuality which lately he had allowed her to glimpse. He would be lusty in bed she thought and attentive to his partner, would take pride in his ability to please a woman, unlike Edouard who had been too stupid to understand the manly power in that.

She became aware as she stood there with her mouth open that she could barely breathe. Her sudden desire for him surprised and shocked her. It must be seeing all that luminous uncovered skin. She felt drawn to him in a most unmaidenly manner. Nothing had ever felt like this before. She needed to touch him. She wanted to lick and kiss his dusky pink nipples, hardening in the chilly early evening air. And such a beautiful mouth—she wanted to feel that beautiful mouth opening over hers.

Richard dipped his head down, his chin against his chest, looking up at her as though he could read her every thought and response. His eyes were like the sea, one day blue, one day the palest almost colorless grey, and at other times close to black. At that moment, they were light, young and pleading, but with a hint of reckless courage.

He looked at her, unblinking, daring her to say something. She failed the test. She had no voice at all, feeling like one aching mass of mute desire, desperate and foolish, heartbreak in the making.

"The front of me is the better view. I look even more awkward from behind." He shrugged, vulnerable and stubborn in his insistence that she look and take his measure, but did not go as far as to turn around for her.

He must have read in her eyes how much she did like the look of him. "Did you find _him_ attractive?" he asked, teasing her.

"Oh, Dickon! You're lovely." She could barely choke the words out; she could feel her cheeks turning red hot with embarrassment at her obvious, uncontrollable want. He chuckled softly at her confusion. Reaching a hand out, she placed it flat against the pale, soft skin of his chest.

"Him?" _What had he just said?_ "Who?" she asked puzzled.

Richard chuckled, pleased, low and seductive, clearly already satisfied. "Silly lass. Your late husband. The Lancaster Edward? Remember him? Liked to call himself the Prince of Wales?"

She giggled and clapped her hand over her mouth. "Eww! No! He was _not_ attractive." She wished she could feel sad for Edouard. Enemy or not, he had been only a boy. But still she shuddered at the thought of the arrogant, sullen lad, barely a year or so older than her, who had held in his hands the power to make her life insufferable.

"Oh, everyone insisted he was a handsome boy, of course—_un beau jeune homme_ as they say in France. I never saw it in him myself. He sneered in the vilest way imaginable and still had spots. His hair was nearly pretty, I suppose—a stupid French haircut, but a nice shade of auburn, always clean and fresh."

She shook her head involuntarily at the thought of his touches, coarse and ugly, under circumstances when Richard's hands upon her, she was certain, would have been nothing less than divine. Stepping closer to Richard, she willed him to touch her. He had held her hand, countless times, kissed her hands and her fingers tips. When he had sought her and discovered her after Tewkesbury, he had hugged her fiercely enough to squeeze the breath out of her, his face smeared with mud and blood, his armor cutting into her chest. But he had still not given her a real lover's kiss. Unlike Edouard, Richard loved her but had respected her age and inexperience always. And, most of all, he had wanted her for herself alone, not even, as his brother George insisted, for her share of the substantial Neville estates. And, as much as Richard desired her, he had always been willing, too much so at times for her youth and impatience, to wait until they had wed or at least were formally betrothed.

To kiss him as he stood there half-naked and shivering would be positively indecent, not to mention inexcusably forward. He finally smiled, relieved and again almost flirtatious in that boyish way of his. Then, his tentativeness melted away like frost and fog on the Yorkshire Dales in the morning sunshine. A grin spread over his face to crinkle about his eyes. Not wanting to sacrifice the delicious sensation of the smooth cool skin of his chest under her warm hand, she reached up with her other hand and tangled her fingers in his tumbled mass of shining dark curls. It had been quite short when they had met again at Tewkesbury and was only now beginning to grow out again.

"I guess the brat Prince Edouard had nice hair." She giggled like a silly girl, but Richard's amused smile, tolerant and affectionate, wiped wiped away most of her embarrassment. "But nothing like yours. I _love_ your hair. I adore it. I've always thought you had perfect hair," she said in a whisper that came out closer to a sob. How unbearably trivial she sounded to herself and how humiliating the way she always threw herself at Richard, always pushing herself at him. But there was that smile of his again, the one under which no distance could exist between them.

"My pretty, pretty Annie," he sighed. He finally put her out of her misery and pulled her harshly into his arms, kissing her hard, stopping for only a moment to say, "Oh, I do love you so. Nothing or no one can ever again keep us apart."

His kiss was at once earnest, eager, rough, and unselfconsciously demanding, sincere in the affection behind his desire. Not at all what she had imagined their first real kiss would be, but perfect, and so much more than she had hoped for throughout her years of childish longing for a single kiss from her own sweet Richard. But then her beautiful, flawed, flame-bright, serious, idealistic Dickon was nothing if not intense. He was everything she had always wanted, before she was old enough to even imagine what falling in love might really mean. There never had been and never could be anyone else.

"Annie? I told Ned today that I don't care anymore what we give George. I'm tired to death of arguing about it all. I will not allow his greed to ruin our lives. Did I do wrong? Will you still want me without all of your lands? Except Middleham, of course. We could take care of your mother at Middleham if we must. I would never bargain that away. It _must_ belong to us. Will you have me still?"

"With all my heart, my only one. Middleham would be lovely. Better even than my childhood dreams. But you alone will always be enough."

**Remarks:**

Every story coming out of the War of the Roses has its disputed versions still argued with passion more than 500 years later. The story of Anne Neville and Richard Duke of Gloucester is no exception. I, of course, believe that the facts support my version.

After the death of his father and the seizure of the throne by his brother Edward IV, Richard Duke of Gloucester (Richard III) was instructed in letters, martial arts, and all knightly conventions as the ward of the Richard Neville Earl of Warwick, often called the Kingmaker. Anne Neville, the younger daughter of Earl of Warwick and Richard of Gloucester spent a formative part of their youths together at Middleham Castle in North Yorkshire. Although, there was no formal betrothal, Anne and Richard were led when they were still children to expect that they would wed.

When Anne and Richard were teens, they were to become the Romeo and Juliet of the War of the Roses. After helping secure the throne for Edward IV, the Kingmaker objected to Edward's marriage for love to Elizabeth Woodville (the widowed commoner with the large, grasping family). As Edward continued to assert his independence from the control of the Earl of Warwick, he abandoned his staunch partisanship of the House of York to support the House of Lancaster. Anne's father then married her at age fourteen to the heir of the deposed Henry VI and the Prince of Wales, Edward of Winchester, only a teenager himself.

To make a long story shorter, King Louis XI of France managed to broker a reconciliation between Warwick and his sister the deposed queen of England, Margaret of Anjou, with the objective of restoring the throne to Henry VI. Disoriented and exiled, young Anne found herself married to the Prince of Wales (a sixteen-year-old brat who doubtless had been promised the throne of England, sooner rather than later). Meanwhile, Edward IV's and Richard of Gloucester's middle brother George Duke of Clarence had already married Anne's older sister Isabel without the approval of his brother and had taken Warwick's side in his rebellion. The bid for power failed, with Warwick dying in the Battle of Barnet and the young Prince of Wales and other significant Lancastrian nobles killed during or shortly following the Battle of Tewkesbury less than three weeks later.

The road to true love was, however, not smooth yet for our separated young lovers. Forgiven his treason, the greedy George claimed control of the widowed Anne as her brother-in-law. In an attempt to gain exclusive rights to the extensive property belonging to the Neville sisters and their mother, George fought against the marriage of Anne and Richard.

An apparent love match, Anne and Richard, after much negotiation and many compromises with the George the Duke of Clarence and finally intervention by the King, eventually did marry. She became his Queen consort when he took the throne after the death of Edward IV. They lost their only son in childhood shortly before Anne died (probably of consumption) and Richard was slain at the Battle of Bosworth. Everyone in this story died heart-breakingly young. The line of the colorful Plantagenet kings and the dynastic hopes of the House of York, ended with Richard III's death. Middleham Castle sometimes called the Windsor of the north was allowed to fall into ruin under the Tudors.


End file.
